The present invention relates to magnetic storage devices. More particularly, the present invention relates to magnetic random access memory responsive to spin polarized current.
In magnetic random access memory (MRAM), bits are represented by the magnetic configuration of a small volume of ferromagnetic material, and its magnetic state is measured via a magnetoresistive (MR) effect during read-back. The MRAM typically includes a two-dimensional array of cells, with each cell containing one MR element that can store one bit.
Most common MRAM designs employ MR elements that are based on either giant magnetoresistance (GMR) or tunneling magnetoresistance (TMR), where these elements are patterned thin film multilayer structures that include at least one pinned layer and one free layer. These elements are designed so that the free layer has a bistable magnetic configuration that is preferentially aligned along one of two possible anti-parallel directions. Hence, the binary data stored is related to the orientation of the free layer magnetization. The pinned layer magnetization is aligned along only one of the two possible free layer directions, and its role is to provide a fixed reference so that the magnetoresistance reveals the free layer orientation with respect to the pinned layer.
There are numerous ways to implement a device based on this concept. However, the leading method to write bits is a so-called “half-select” process in which the magnetic fields generated by two roughly orthogonal current carrying wires orient the free layer into its intended configuration. The amplitudes of the currents flowing through the two wires, referred to as the word and bit lines, are chosen so that the corresponding fields reverse a free layer only where the two wires intersect. Therefore, this method can select any individual cell within the array with a minimum of electrical wires and without unintentionally reversing the magnetic state of other cells. However, this writing scheme exhibits poor scaling with increasing areal density of cells.